


as the world caves in

by ocdranboo



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: End of the World, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I wrote this in one sitting and it's the most ive written in ages, Implied/Referenced Past Suicidal Ideation, Nuclear War, Nuclear Weapons, Ranboo’s tears burn, Song fic, Tommy warning /j, ambiguous ending, based off of As The World Caves In by Matt Maltese, bet you didn’t expect to see those tags together!, essentially, i guess?, idk if it’s clear but, platonic marriage, smile through the pain lads, they’re both neurodivergent, you can read this as them dying at the end or not! it's all up to interpretation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-19 11:09:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29873763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ocdranboo/pseuds/ocdranboo
Summary: Nukes are trained on Snowchester. Tubbo and Ranboo have one day left.based off the song As The World Caves In by Matt Maltese
Relationships: Ranboo & Tubbo
Comments: 10
Kudos: 95





	as the world caves in

**Author's Note:**

> this takes place briefly after the disc finale - dream is imprisoned, tommy hasn’t been murdered, etc
> 
> b4 any1 says it, i know the song is romantic but consider: idc what the original intent of the song is it’s about the plankton husbands now :) /nm /lh  
> also yes i reference theyre husbands, yes it’s all platonic, yall know the drill  
> also- ranboo and tubbo both live in ranboo’s current house bc i had no wifi when i wrote this to google where tubbo lives and i dont feel like changing it jhfjhdj

Neither of them quite knew what to do after hearing that the nukes were trained right on Snowchester. That they’d been reprogrammed to explode the next morning.

Nobody knew who had done it, but it’d been Jack who told Tubbo. With a fear in his eyes that was stronger than Tubbo had ever seen, he explained there was something very wrong with the programming. That they were going to die. If not instantly in the blast, the shock waves sent through the server would make it unlivable. Jack pulled up maps and explained that there was, in his own words, _No fucking way they could get far enough away to survive well enough to make it worth it._

Tubbo had sat on the ground with a pen and a book, trying to do math and ignore the numbers swimming in his eyes. But Jack was right— the way the nukes were programmed, they’d blow the entirety of Snowchester to bedrock. It’d cause the largest earthquake the server had seen. The debris and radiation would cover the Dream SMP and beyond. Kinoko Kingdom, the Badlands, even the prison wasn’t safe, although by its nature the explosion itself couldn’t hurt the prison.

Tubbo was speedrunning the five stages of grief. His first thought was to wrap his and Ranboo’s house in a layer of obsidian. It couldn’t hurt, he reasoned. The basement would definitely be destroyed in the blast unless he felt like digging down and surrounding it too, but maybe they could salvage a bit of their life.

That didn’t solve the debris, the radiation. But it was worth a shot.

Tubbo had gone through a lot in his short seventeen years. But he didn’t want to die. Not now. Not when he was finally happy, happier than he’d been in a long time. Not when he had his husband and his best friend by his side. Not with Snowchester, with Dream finally in prison, with Schlatt dead.

“Hey, big man,” Tubbo said into his phone, and despite his best efforts his voice shook.

“Hey, Tubs,” Ranboo responded.

“Can we meet at our house? There’s, uh. Something going on. You didn’t do anything wrong and neither did I, I’m not mad at you, don’t worry. It’s a server-wide issue, and I just want to get your take on it, I guess,” he said.

“Uh, yeah,” Ranboo said. The worry was evident in his voice, but it wasn’t the panic that came when he thought Tubbo hated him. That had happened a few times. Tubbo would call him, telling him he wanted to meet, and Ranboo’s voice would pitch up and start to shake, and sometimes Tubbo wouldn’t notice, forgetting he had to clue into the sound of someone’s voice rather than what they were saying. And sometimes he would notice, and then he’d spend the next twenty minutes explaining that Ranboo had done nothing wrong, that he wasn’t mad, that he just wanted to talk about rescuing Michael from the Nether or building a pumpkin pie shop in Snowchester.

“You want to meet in twenty?”

“Sure. See ya then,” Ranboo said.

“Love ya, dude.”

“Love you too.”

Jack was biting at his thumbnail as he looked down at Tubbo’s calculations, sometimes going in with a pencil and redoing a problem or working himself through one.

“Good luck, Tubbo,” Jack said. He couldn’t bring himself to look directly at Tubbo. “Thank you for being my friend.”

His voice sounded so quiet, so vulnerable, and the reality of the situation started to hit. Tubbo figured he’d feel this again, the crushing weight of what was about to happen. They’d either die instantly or quickly later.

“Thank you for being mine,” Tubbo responded.

Twenty minutes later found him in the living room of his house, toying with the strings of his hoodie as he sat cross-legged on the floor. Ranboo had entered the house and immediately collapsed on the couch, offering Tubbo a grass block. Tubbo took it and put it on his lap.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” Ranboo responded. “What’s up, what did you want to talk about?”

“Um, well,” Tubbo said. It was harder to get the words out than he thought. He felt stuck, like he couldn’t move, the panic growing in his chest. “I talked to Jack,” he choked out. He buried his face in the grass, blinking back the tears of panic he felt brimming at his eyelids.

Ranboo had sensed his panic— anyone in a fifty mile radius probably could— and slid off the couch, sitting down next to Tubbo and folding his legs underneath him. “Hey,” he said. “It’s okay, man. What did Jack say?”

“Jack checked on the nukes,” Tubbo said. The fear clawed at his throat and the words felt like blades as they came out his mouth. “They’re trained on Snowchester. They’re going to go off tomorrow at eight in the morning. It’ll be too big of an explosion for us to live.”

“Wh-what?”

“We can’t run,” Tubbo said. “Jack and I did the math. We can get to just past Logstedshire but the debris and the radiation would still probably kill us even past the initial explosion area. Our best bet is to cover the outside of the house with obsidian and wait it out, but the bomb might tear through the floor and kill us, and I don’t know how long it’ll take for the radiation to die down and the debris to fall. If we live we’ll have to rebuild the entire server from the ground up. If we don’t, well. I don’t think we will.”

Speaking the words felt like running a marathon but once he started he couldn’t stop. He paused. There was a beat of silence. And then Tubbo was sobbing, wiping his tears as they fell, hugging the grass block to his chest like it’d ground him, like if he wrapped his arms around it he wouldn’t die.

“Fuck, dude,” Ranboo said. Ranboo didn’t usually swear, so when he did, Tubbo was always instantly aware that the situation was either very serious or very funny. This was most certainly the second.

Tubbo put the block down and turned towards his husband, one of his best friends, and threw his arms around the taller boy’s shoulders, careful to keep his tears off of Ranboo’s skin.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and once he started he couldn’t stop, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t keep us safe. I’m sorry for crying, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry, Tubbo.” He could hear the tears building in Ranboo’s voice and then the telltale nigh-inaudible sizzling noise that meant Ranboo’s tears were searing into his skin. He felt Ranboo wipe the tears away and the sizzling noise that meant Ranboo had effectively just burnt his hand as well as his face.

Tubbo couldn’t stop his own tears but he still pulled himself back, wiping the tears from Ranboo’s face with his thumb so the other didn’t have to go through more pain than he already had to.

“What do we do?” Ranboo asked.

“I guess we build with obsidian and then we wait,” Tubbo said. “It’s all we can do, really. And we tell the others. We put the most important stuff in our inventories in the slight chance we don’t just die.”

The realization hit him again. It hit him like a fucking brick to the chest and he was paralyzed as he realized again that the world would cave in. There was nothing they could do to stop it, all they could do was wait. Jack had said trying to disarm the nukes would just set them off. They couldn’t stop time.

“Okay. Okay.” Ranboo sniffed, and another tear fell, and Tubbo again pulled back to wipe it from his cheek before Ranboo burned his hand trying to do it himself. “I have obsidian, I can build, I can- I can do that.”

“I’m going to call Tommy,” Tubbo said, although he could barely get through the sentence.

“I would recommend… waiting a moment,” Ranboo said, and Tubbo let out a half-laugh.

“That’s fair.”

Tubbo could hear Ranboo’s shaky breaths as he tried to steady himself, and Tubbo did the same, focusing on Ranboo’s breathing to steady his own.

After a couple minutes Tubbo straightened up, wiping at his eyes with his palm. “I’m gonna call Tommy.”

“I’ll gather the obsidian,” Ranboo said. “I have some in the basement. I won’t block the door yet.”

“Okay,” Tubbo said. He wiped his hands on his jeans before pulling out his phone and clicking on Tommy’s contact name.

“‘Ello,” Tommy greeted after a single ring.

“Hey, Tommy. Are in a place where you can hear bad news?”

“Uh— that depends, can Sam Nook know?”

“I don’t… think he should,” Tubbo responded, weighing the options. Sam Nook was a robot, he wouldn’t feel it the way humans would. But Sam Nook was a robot, and he was programmed to protect Tommy. If Sam Nook tried to fix the nukes, they would all die early.

“Oh. Okay.” Tommy moved the phone from his ear to speak to Sam Nook. Tubbo heard mumbling, then rustling. “I’m back. We’re good. What’s the bad news? Is there a new American on the server?”

Tubbo let out a short laugh. “I wish it was an American.”

“Oh, God.”

“There’s not an easy way to say this, so, uh. We’re all going to die. There’s nukes pointed at Snowchester, and Jack and I did the math and when it goes off the entirety of Snowchester gets blown to bedrock, and the rest of the server is covered in debris and radiation, there’ll be a huge earthquake, and we can’t run far enough fast enough to survive. Ranboo and I are covering our house in obsidian if you want to do that, but it might not work, it’s just. Our last hope.”

“Fucking shit,” Tommy said. “You mean the whole server is being wiped out?”

“Pretty much,” Tubbo said. “Nearly everything we’ve loaded so far will be affected. We can run but not far enough to not be affected by it. If we do live we’ll all have to completely start over.”

“But what about the Big Innit Hotel? Sam Nook and I just started work on it— This fucking sucks, Tubbo.”

“Yeah,” Tubbo said. “We have until tomorrow morning at eight to prepare and then we die.”

“I’m not ready to die,” Tommy said. His voice sounded weak, more afraid than Tubbo had ever heard it. “This isn’t my time.”

“I know,” Tubbo said. “Me too.”

“Things were just fucking starting to get better. The green pussy is in prison. I have my discs.”

“It’s not fair,” Tubbo agreed. “I’ve got you, and you’re my best friend, and I’ve got Ranboo who I’m literally married to. Things just started looking up.”

“This fucking SUCKS,” Tommy repeated. “Does everyone else know?”

“I don’t know,” Tubbo said. “I’m going to ask Jack after I finish talking to you.”

“Does Jack know?”

“Yeah. He’s the one who told me.”

“How’s he dealing with it?”

Jack’s soft voice as he spoke echoed in Tubbo’s mind. Thank you for being my friend.

“He’s… probably not great.”

“And Ranboo?”

“He’s collecting obsidian for our house,” Tubbo said.

“What do you think the best idea is?”

Tubbo thought for a second. “You’re not as close to the blast as we are. If you run, you can get further than I could. If you build a safe room outside of the— I’ll have Jack send you a picture of the map. Outside of the red zone. Just an obsidian box. My advice is to fucking bolt,” Tubbo said.

There was a long silence. “I love you, Tubbo,” Tommy said finally.

“I love you too, Tommy.”

Tommy hung up. It was to be expected; Tubbo knew Tommy wasn’t great with emotions, either expressing or understanding them. Tubbo lowered his phone and called Jack.

“Hey, Jack.”

“Tubbo,” Jack said. His voice was hoarse.

“I think we should do a huge— I don’t know. A fucking mass text or something. With the whole server. And we can send them the map, and they can make their choices.”

“I can send it out,” Jack said. “Are you holding up well?”

“Are you?”

“That’s fair.” Jack let out a sigh that held more fear than anyone should ever feel. “I’ll do it. Good luck, Tubbo.”

“Thanks, Jack.”

A text from Tommy appeared on his phone.

 **Tommy:** r u telling dream

 **Tubbo:** jack is sending out a mass text I dont know what he is saying

 **Tommy:** ok

 **Tommy:** this is us

Tommy sent an image. It was a picture of two cats curled up in a heart shape.

**Tommy:** i am not making a Pussy Joke even if i really want to

 **Tubbo:** love you too big man

Tubbo put his phone down as he heard Ranboo coming up the ladder from the basement.

“I’ve got obsidian,” he said. “Do you want some?”

“Yeah,” Tubbo said.

Ranboo dropped the obsidian from his inventory and Tubbo put it in his.

“I’ll work on the back of the house if you work on the front,” Tubbo said.

“Yeah. Sounds good.”

“Thanks, big man.”

And the two of them got to work.

**T-minus 11 hours**

The house was almost completely covered in obsidian, minus the door and one window. Ranboo and Tubbo had made a home in the kitchen and ordered Taco Bell. Tubbo had propped up his laptop on a stack of books and was playing _The Office_ , both of them completely ignoring it in order to talk to the other. Ranboo had changed into his favourite outfit, his classic suit and tie. Tubbo had also changed into his favourite outfit, although for Tubbo this was a pair of Ranboo’s sweatpants, which were insanely comfortable, rolled up so he could still walk, and a green t-shirt dotted with a light flower pattern.

“This can’t really be happening,” Ranboo said, and Tubbo was inclined to agree. “It doesn’t feel real.”

Tubbo got up and went to the fridge, pouring himself and Ranboo more chocolate milk. “It really doesn’t.”

“It’s our final night alive,” Ranboo said. “How— how does someone even begin to process that, really?”

“You don’t,” Tubbo said. The sensation of being on a time limit, having so much more to say and do but knowing he wouldn’t make it… it was so similar, too similar, to how he’d felt at the final disc war, trapped in Dream’s supervillain lair while he mocked Tommy. Dream had hurt Tommy in ways Tubbo couldn’t fully understand, but he knew that in that moment he’d seen more terror and anger in Tommy’s eyes than he’d ever seen before.

Tommy had begged him not to kill Tubbo. Tubbo had been ready to give up his last life.

It was a different situation. Same in the way that Tubbo knew he was about to die, but this time he was fucking terrified, and this time he was sure he wasn’t ready to go.

“This isn’t fucking fair,” he said. “We have so much more life left to live. It’s not fair. I’m not ready.”

“Who did this?” Ranboo asked, gesturing to the air. “Who set the nukes?”

“We don’t know,” Tubbo said. “We’ll never know.”

“It’s not fair,” Ranboo said, echoing Tubbo’s previous words.

**T-minus 5 hours**

The Office played on the TV as Ranboo and Tubbo stayed curled up under the blankets, sipping at chocolate milk from wine glasses and only paying attention about half the time. Anything to distract themselves from what was happening.

Ranboo’s phone rang. Both of their phones had rung a lot that night.

“Hi, Puffy.”

Tubbo turned in interest and paused the show before pulling his phone out to scroll aimlessly through Twitter.

“I know,” he said softly. “As best as I can.” Puffy must have been pulling an impromptu therapy session over the phone.

“Thank you,” he said. “I will.” A longer pause, filled with nothing but the sound of Ranboo’s breathing getting less steady. “Thank you. Really. Goodnight, Puffy.” Ranboo put his phone down, his eyes glinting with tears.

“What did she say?”

“She just called to tell me that, um,” and Ranboo’s voice was audibly tearful. Usually he could hide his tears in his voice pretty well, but this was Ranboo with his mask off, Ranboo and his raw emotions filling the room, and Tubbo was hit by a wave of appreciation for the other boy’s trust. Like clockwork, he reached up the second a tear fell and wiped it from Ranboo’s skin, his hand brushing against the bandages Ranboo had had to place due to the burns. “She wanted me to know she knows this is hard and she wishes she could have done something to stop it. She sounded genuine. I— I’m not used to adults treating me like they care,” he said. He pulled out a grass block and held it. Tubbo knew the weight alone was comforting for the taller boy.

“Puffy’s wonderful,” Tubbo said.

“She said she thought of me when she got the text. She wanted to know that I was handling it.”

“Are you?”

“As best as I can,” Ranboo said, the same way he’d said it to Puffy.

**T-minus 3 hours**

Five in the morning and Tubbo’s eyes were forcing themselves closed as he told Ranboo, “I’ve got to sleep. I can’t think about this any longer.”

“Yeah,” said Ranboo. “Me too.”

He turned off the TV and curled up in his blanket, the enderman somehow managing to hold into a tiny bit of space. It was something Tubbo had always noticed, how Ranboo was scared to take up any space. Tubbo was the same way.

“I’m glad it’s you that I’m with while this is happening,” Tubbo said as he laid down, staring up at the glow stars on the ceiling.

Ranboo was quiet for a second. “I’m so glad I met you. And I’m glad I’ve grown to trust you.”

“I’m glad you trust me too.” Tubbo said. “If we burn, I’m glad we can burn together.” The feelings were bubbling to the surface, but if he started crying he wouldn’t stop until the bomb locked in. “I love you. Whatever happens.”

“I love you too.”

And with that, Tubbo closed his eyes, and he went to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> i stole thing abt burning together from something tubbo actually said to ranboo in a stream last month i literally remember sitting there like oh my god that slaps i should put that in a fic  
> my tumblr is @ocdranboo and im very cool btw jfhjskh


End file.
